


I Believe (I’ll be over you)

by tukimecca



Series: Everything that makes me whole (I'll dedicate them all to you) [11]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Canon Related, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 11:06:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16474382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tukimecca/pseuds/tukimecca
Summary: Mark and Xuxi just have to keep saying goodbye.





	I Believe (I’ll be over you)

**Author's Note:**

> if SM ain’t giving us maracas, lets give ourself maracas \\\ o //
> 
> I know you’re all probably waiting for ‘This is (devotion)’s update, but once again I apologize that my beta is busy with life (again, bcs life should take priority, ppl!) Let’s pray for her speedy comeback \\\ o // And again, the story is 100% complete, don’t worry~
> 
> I wrote this a while back and it’s just sitting idle in my drive bcs nobody is willing to beta it BUT I want to post something since I have my personal posting quota (basically at least 1 every month), so, please bear with the grammatical error in this one (unless ofc you’re willing to help me fix this ;) )
> 
> Apologize for any mistakes, timeline or place inaccuracy. UN-BETA-ED. Inspired? By 20180826 before DRM it!Live Mugi Box which happened to be around the same time Xuxi/Winwin/Kun left for China.

_Everything finds its place and leaves_  
_You took all of me and left_  
_But like two hands of the clock in my heart_  
_I keep lingering in the same place_

11:11 - Taeyeon

:::

Mark wonders, as kisses are pressed along his sternum, ticklish like feather stroke, if there was any meaning to this at all. _This_ , whatever he and Xuxi are doing, whatever it’s called, whatever it could be named.

 _This_ . This is just them, using each other to get by, wasting their time. _This_ , if they’re an art, is coloring out of lines. Unneeded. Avoidable. Unnecessary. But things, sometimes, is bound to get out of lines. Things, sometimes, is bound to go out of the plan, out of control. Things, sometimes, the messier it gets, the more real it becomes. And really, maybe, that’s what they - _this_ , needed. Breathe life into it. Make it _real_ , make it _true_. It doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to be real.

And a sense, surely this thing, this intimate meeting of their bodies, isn’t making any sense at all. Illogical, completely irrational. Like the color they smudged out of lines. So maybe, if they’re an art, they are an abstract one. Chaotic splash of color. Careless stroke on the canvas. It doesn’t have to take shape, just expressive enough convey the message. The feeling of the artist. The emotion, exclusively articulated through the complex painting. If they’re words, they’re codes. Not easily understood, complicated, deceptive. Not for everyone to know but for select few.

Select few, in this story, in their case, is each other. Mark certainly doesn’t need anyone to know, to understand what the hell is going between him and Xuxi, or what the fuck they’re doing together. He doesn’t need anyone to put a tag and classify their vulgar reunion as something. _This_ is them to have, to understand, to bask in and thoroughly enjoy.

 _This_ , this might be madness, insanity. _This_ might not make any sense at all, and God knows how Mark gives no flying fuck about it. _This_ doesn’t have to have a meaning, _this_ just needs to be real.

Mark wonders again when Xuxi’s lips are clamped around his nipple, nibbling, sucking. Every single touch sends him reeling, sparks are flying, and the ecstasy is fleeting for pain, pain comes, swift and striking. Blossoms scarlet in his chest, vibrating through his bones.

 _This_ , this doesn’t have any meaning. In the end, Xuxi will keep on leaving.

“Where are you touching?” Mark groans.

“Here, you like it,” Xuxi answers lazily, his accent is caressing Mark’s sensitive nipple. He sucks on it again, enthusiastic. His hand begins to toy with Mark’s other bud, making the smaller boy keens.

“Stop it,” Mark pats him on the nape. Once. Xuxi growls, pinching and twisting. Mark moans but losing his patient all the same. Second pat, this time a little harder. A code. Xuxi flinches, he removes his lips from Mark’s nipple, pouting.

“But you like it. You’re always so reactive when I did it to you.”

Cute. Adorable. Incongruent with the way his body moves. Disconsonant with the way he had touched Mark before. Mark starts massaging the back of his neck, part apology, part encouragement. “You’re only doing that to get a reaction out of me?”

Xuxi’s mouth returns to his skin, licking alone his clavicle. When he speaks, his voice is muffled by Mark’s collarbone.  “Not really. I can just, you know, breathe, and I can get a reaction from you,”

Mark is ready to retort, but quick backtrack of his record tells him that he should let it go for now. He doesn’t exactly have a good track record in this field, not when Xuxi had practically reduced him into either a sputtering or giggling (mostly; _giggling_ ) mess just by speaking alone.

The lack of answer translated into trumpet of victory, Xuxi makes a satisfied noise, kissing along the column of Mark’s neck, nipping that tender spot behind his neck.

Sighing, both in defeat and pleasure, Mark mumbles, “I don’t think we have time.”

“Don’t think so either,” casual. Nonchalant.

That irritates Mark a little, he grabs Xuxi's shoulder (bare. skin on skin. He had come so many times before while biting it. Memories come when it's the least needed,) and pushes him away.

Confused, also looking a little bit irritated, Xuxi asks, “what?”

“I'm serious.”

“About?”

A brow is arched. This tosser. He looks so charming. Boyishly disarming. “Time. When is your plane leaving?”

Another brow follows. Xuxi looks around, Mark knows it’s for nothing in particular. “I don't know. Around the time your broadcast started? I don't even fucking know what time it is.”

“You should know,” groaning, again, Mark pinches the bridge of his nose. No, there's no headache coming, just heartache, lingering and persistent ghost blooming on his chest.

Seemingly taking a pity on him, Xuxi says, “I know.”

Then he removes himself from on top of Mark in search of his phone. The sudden emptiness that embraces him leaves Mark uneasy.

This feels wrong, for a reason, being around Xuxi when they're stripped bare to the skin but not constantly touching each other is wrong. It’s uncomfortable. It's weird. Like them. Like _this_ , this is nonsensical.

It always makes Mark emotional.

“We still have like an hour, and a half, or something,” the taller boy tells him, planting himself back above Mark, trapping him inside his heat.

In relief, Mark finds now that he can breathe. He holds Xuxi by the neck, pulling him down for a kiss, the one he eagerly reciprocates. For a while, they just kiss. All his thoughts are shoved away until there's nothing left in his head.

And _head,_ everything started because he agreed to give Xuxi a head. Mark doesn't remember exactly where and when. He just remembers they did it in a toilet stall, Xuxi's pants were hunched around his thighs, Mark was on his knees, letting Xuxi used his mouth for relief. That time, Xuxi had been nervous, nerves kicked high up the roof, and one way to another led Mark helping him to relieve his tension. It wasn't just once. Twice. Thrice. And then they find themselves with _this_ . _This_ that they never bother to put a name on. Whatever it is, it doesn't change a fact that _this_ is magical.

If not making Mark always feeling sentimental.

Xuxi kisses him rough, as rough as he was when he first kissed Mark because they were a little younger and didn't know better, (and “have you done it with boys before?” “no,” “just girls?” “yeah, but I never-” “just kisses?” “should I-” “I'm not a girl,” “okay). Xuxi kisses him rough because Mark always likes it a little rough.

He hates it when Xuxi is being tender. He hates it when Xuxi is acting kinder. He hates it when Xuxi fucks him sweet and slow, because it makes Mark wonder if this is how it feels to be loved.

And he shouldn't.

“Do it,” Mark whispers it to Xuxi's ears. His order. His plea. They don't have that much time. An hour, then they have to go out of the door, back to each of their own responsibility. Xuxi got a plane to catch and Mark a program to shoot. They have time for that but not for each other.

“Do what?”

“Fuck me, we don't have much time,” Mark practically growled, feeling a little annoyed, growing antsy because his head starts chanting; _you got no time, you got no time, you got no t_ ime, and he needs it to stop. And he fucking get it already, him, Xuxi, they have no fucking time. Just to waste, not together. Not to talk, not to make a wish, like lovers do, for lovers they are not.

But then Xuxi smiles down on him, teasing and sincere and earnest and anything he shouldn’t be if they’re just going to leave each other later with nothing with secret bruises that Mark wishes takes a longer time to fade. Why bother to disappear if it’s not going to heal?

Why bother pretending if they already knew that it isn’t real?

But this, this abstract thing between them, is real. It’s true. Xuxi is here, right now, above him, smiling down on him like Mark is the best damn thing he has ever seen. And the heartache that stays with Mark is just as real, as true, setting sun undeniable.

“Mark, Mark, so impatient,” Xuxi chuckles, still smiling. That smile, the one that Mark always see whenever he closes his eyes, when Xuxi isn’t around. They’re the same, unchanging. But in his dream, both of them are brave enough to put a name on this.

When he opens his eyes, they aren’t. “We don’t have time.”

“How long are you going to say that?”

“Until you get fucking started because we don’t,” a kiss, bruising, not his lips; his heart. “Have a fucking,” a hand on his cock, fondling. “Fuck. Fucking time. Xuxi!”

Laughing, plucking all feathers from Mark’s wings, Xuxi smiles at him still. Mark is almost angry now, Xuxi better stops smiling and uses his mouth for another thing like kissing him or sucking him off or eating him out. Something. Anything.

Anything but this.

“Good?”

No. “Just get it over with,” Mark huffs.

“Impatient.”

That, he admits he is. Admission is easy but admittance is not. Rejection is easy but denial is not. “Xuxi,” he honest to God whines, tripping laughter out of the taller boy’s lips. Sending the birds in his ribcage twittering, sending his wall of resistance comes down toppling.

“Okay, okay, baby boy, take it easy,” with that, with another gentle smile that makes Mark all sentimental, he kisses him, sets their stars, their bodies, aligned.

Not their heart, because this, this doesn’t even have a name, too insignificant for the high-and-mighty heart to participate.

:::

His touch, Xuxi finds them phenomenal. Mark, the boy himself, he is diabolical.

Xuxi has watched him before he debuted, had adored and admired him. Because Mark got himself all figured out before he hit fifteen, while Xuxi was still a mess, trying to sew together all parts of life that his juvenile self has torn apart.

To be fair, he wasn’t that _juvenile_ to got his life all messed up, but he was a mess on his own. A charming wreck. A colorful mess. It’s a past he can take pride over still because despite the wrong turns we might have taken, he never once shamed or burdened his parent.

Then life, his hunger for its experience, led him to Mark Lee. This boy, he has everything. He’s like the king and everyone around him are his people, ready to offer him all their golds and jewels. For Xuxi, he’s untouchable. For Xuxi, he’s unreachable. And for Xuxi, the boy is loveable.

His smile, his mind, his laughter, his mole. They all come to him along with questions, none of which he can answer. This is the first time he ever felt like _this_ to a boy; a crush, one might call it. He found himself watching Mark’s each and every move, thinking about the adorable way he scrunched up his face when he’s laughing too hard, drawing the image of his figure in his head before he sleeps.

But none of his fantasy, if he’s allowed to call it, can live up to the actual one.

When Mark let him touched him, when Mark let him _used_ him. When Mark let him kissed him, that pretty little mouth of his. When Mark let him held him, that tender little waist of his. When Xuxi was young, he had learned a thing or two about treating other people’s body, but none of it can be compared to _this_ . _This_ , whatever it is called.

 _This_ is different. _This_ is Mark, with all his rough curves and soft edges. _This_ is Mark, with all his passion and wild abandon. _This_ is Mark Lee. They crashed, the burnt, they’re consumed by the fire of the collision.

It’s been going on ever since, stolen moments, secret touch. Codes are now well-rehearsed, well-sent, and understood. Times when they needed to get unhinged, times when they needed to go unwind. Times, they only got to waste but never spend together. An expensive luxury, their time, it’s borrowed and it’s going down to the last one.

It hasn’t been long since Mark returned from Japan, he spent most of his times practicing for his upcoming promotion. His last one with his team. He’s been all sentimental about it lately, he hid it very well, only showing it in front of Xuxi when they got the chance to burn their excess frustration and energy.

Xuxi is grateful for the privilege, he’d tell Mark pretty words if his Korean isn’t so limited, besides, it doesn’t like it’s his place to speak. Moreso with his departure from Korea itself is looming over them.

Today, he has a plane to catch to China. Today, Mark has called him, asking if he got time to spare. Xuxi said, “yes,” and here they are; Mark under him, panting, breathing fast and ragged, begging him to go faster, bringing them both closer to the height of euphoria.

When they fuck, they don’t talk. They’re loud though, lots of groaning, hissing, growling, moaning, keening, and cursing. Lots of cursing. Mark cusses like a sailor, and Xuxi loves to hear it. Loves to tickle them out of his usually prim and proper lips. Loves to see Mark loses his inhibitions, flying words and syllable so colorful like the fireworks he ignited to pop under Xuxi’s skin.

When they come, they’re silent. Everything rolled out of their bodies but their words. Their voices. Trapped, safely confined. Mark doesn’t have to say anything for Xuxi to understand, to get, to read between the lines with his limited language-ability. To see how hard Mark is struggling to keep his mouth under control for he had let his heart out of it.

Yes. Xuxi knew. Xuxi understands, that when tears start to brim on his eyes, they’re not the aftermath of pleasure nor out of ecstasy. They, diamonds he caught by the bay of his lashes, are born out of misery.

Mark isn’t that hard to tell. He’s endearingly honest, he cannot lie, his expression says it all. Xuxi knows that with each time they spent together, they’ve torn each other’s world apart, bring it down, beautiful shambles, and built them up, with each other’s colors. Each meeting, each reunion, each breathes exchanged, they’re slowly turning into each other.

But they shouldn’t, not when they have everything in the lines; their careers, their life. Everything’s at stake, and this small, flickering star, isn’t worthy to chase. They’re left to watch the season passes, sky turns, and the star is gone, never to be seen again. Both of them know where their priorities lie, where their responsibility is at.

It shouldn’t be difficult, but yet-

“...we still got time?”

Xuxi wants to ask him, gathering Mark into his arms, which _time_ is he talking about? Their time together today? Their time together today until they have to stand in front of the familiar yet foreign goodbye? “Maybe, it hasn’t been that long.”

Surely so since Xuxi had fucked him fast and rough today, because Mark looked like he needed it, the violence. The pain on the right places. “I see,” is all Mark said. He shifts around to for more comfortable position, Xuxi’s heart flails upon realizing Mark is up for a _cuddle_.

Eventually, he stops moving, his nose is tickling the side of Xuxi’s neck, breathing evening. “Comfy?”

“Mm-hmm,” then silence settles between them, nice and, _well_ , comfy.

This lull after, it gives Xuxi time to think. About himself. About Mark. About _them_ and _this_ , this play they partake in. He wonders how long they can play this game, long enough until Xuxi had to leave? Or longer even after Xuxi leave? Can they be satisfied with _this_ or they want to move on to the next stage, make things clear and definite between them, _this_ , put a label on it?

Can they commit them were they to pursue it? With sea and land between them. With distance, bridged by phone calls and texts, but uncrossable nonetheless. Can they stand it? Can _he_ stand it? Mark is noble and loyal, while Xuxi, Xuxi, he’s just a fool. He had relationships before and none of them were with boys, none of them involved length and space and secret and things at stake.

None of them involved Mark Lee, and Mark Lee, Xuxi is pathetically, irrevocably, in love with him even if that’s the last thing he should do.

Mark knows this too, surely, that’s why he never says anything. They acted upon it but never address it, leaving everything in limbo and status quo. They knew it’s there but pretend it isn’t. They know they could, but they choose they wouldn’t.

See, this is what he meant when he said they’re slowly turning into each other; they’re doing the exact same thing. They let themselves becoming nothing for each other but memory.

Xuxi wishes then, if Mark will dwindle him into memory, he wishes himself to be like the memory of summer. Of holiday. Of running under the compassionate golden sun, of light flooding in like rain of blessing. Of bells, tinkering like laughter. Of garden; flowers bloom and grasses evergreen. Of walking bare feet along the shore, like inhaling the sea, getting sand stuck under your nails. Like summer getaway, like forgetting yourself, freeing yourself from the killing routine to find yourself again as you stare into the foreign yet nostalgic ocean.

Like that. He wants to be such memory. Beautiful. Beloved. As Mark had once described him to be; _lovely_. If he was a film, he wants to be a classic, Mark’s favorite. The one he always coming back to and talks of with such fondness and admiration, the one he’d recommend to everyone. If he was a book, he wants to be the rattiest one; the one with dog-eared pages for how many times Mark had read him. If he was a photo, he wants to be the one that faded the most, ink smudging from the caress of Mark’s fingertips.

If he will become nothing but the faculty of what Mark remembers, if he will become nothing but databank from which Mark will learn from and grow, then he’d like to be the best kind of memory. The one that will inspire Mark the most, like a human is guided by the northern star to find direction, like human learned from a mistake. A mistake, if he was one, he’d be the beautiful one, the one that Mark regret the most so he can learn from it and never have to suffer the same pain, the same consequence. The one that Mark can forgive himself for but never forgotten.

And Mark, Mark will be the same for him. If Mark were to be his memory, then he’d make Mark the most beautiful one. The one he couldn’t speak about without adorning his words with gemstones and jewels. If Mark is a mistake, he’d make Mark his sweetest one. The one he doesn’t regret did but knew he shouldn’t continue doing.

Even then, it surely takes time, when they no longer agonize the memory they had together. It takes time, but surely, one day they can get over it. Days will pass, like season, like birthdays. They’ll grow older, more mature, and the time when thinking of each other’s name no longer twinge aches in their hearts will surely come. One day. Eventually. It takes time, it takes effort, but one day, it will surely pay.

Maybe it’s because they’re still young now that it sounds difficult, but they have taken the first step. They have made their decision to not claim each other. It’s still hard for now, but one day, one day it will come naturally to them, like breathing, like hurting, like falling and struggling to get back again; Like living.

Goodbye is just a part of it. All goodbye is like this. Painful. Hopeful. Close one door and open another. There’s no guarantee it changes things for the better, but that they’re taking another step is what it counts.

That’s what Mark told him, long ago, when stress and frustration of debut almost got Xuxi squashed under. “What matters is that you’re here now, go on, and trust yourself in the future to take care of it.”

So Xuxi will let himself from the future handle it. The heartache that lingers. The pain that follows. He trusts himself in the future to make the best choice, even if it might not be the right one.

And himself, in the present, with Mark Lee crying silently in his hold, is making the right choice, even if for him, for them, it is not the best one.

:::

“Can I wear this?”

“Huh?”

Mark’s holding a sweater, Xuxi’s sweater, the one he wore when he’s coming here.

Mark isn’t looking at him, just staring at the garment in his hand, thinking something silly along the lines of having something of him. Of you. If he cannot have his all and everything, then at least let him have something this small, so insignificant. A piece of him. A fragment. Anything.

When Xuxi isn’t giving him any respond, a little bit petulant, he turns at the taller boy, repeating his question, “can I?”

Xuxi doesn’t answer him, he just wants to look at him forever. If staying mute gives him that, he’s tempted to do that. _Just, don’t speak, don’t say anything, just look at me, don’t let me lose you, don’t let us run out of time. Don’t-_

“Whatever,” Mark rolls his eyes, about to throw the sweater but Xuxi moves faster, catching his wrist, pulling him into his embrace, and kisses him. Rough, his soul, jagged on the edges, not without bruises but for Mark, he’s going to give it whole.

Mark kisses him back, just as desperate. It’s still difficult for them, still so fucking difficult, maybe after this when they’re apart and think about each other, tears will well up. But later, days later, they will get used to the days without each other, just like how their life was once before they met one another.

“Does this mean I can?”

“Anything for you, baby boy, anything.”

“Stop saying things you didn’t mean.”

A smile. Sad. Solemn. _'I'm sorry'_ unspoken. “I mean it.”

 _'You’re not'_ remains unsaid. “Jerk.”

“Let me put it on you?”

“Go on.”

 _'I love you'_ , remains unsaid.


End file.
